“The false accusation against Israel has awakened the ghosts of anti-Semitism that always existed in Russian society and which the ruling powers have made an effort to hide in recent decades. Russian television stations are permitting themselves to make harsh statements about Israel and a number of speakers, including senior delegates in the Russian parliament, have demanded that military air bases in the Jewish state be bombed in retribution. Until last week’s incident, such remarks were effectively prohibited in public in Russia, because officials were certain that the person at the top—President Vladimir Putin—objected to them.

But the new situation in which a major government entity in the form of the Russian Defense Ministry talks about Israel in language reminiscent of the cold war has unleashed anti-Semitic language in Russia in general.

The Russians’ unwillingness to accept the facts, along with their desire to insist that Israel is responsible, demonstrate that they intend to use the incident to squeeze out the diplomatic maximum in Syria. They will try to limit Israel’s operational freedom, albeit without getting dragged into a direct conflict. The manufactured crisis over the shot-down plane will be used as an excuse to bestow advanced military capabilities on the Syrian regime, such as the S-300 missile system.”

"This past weekend Melania Trump’s spokeswoman penned an op-ed for CNN in which she criticized the media’s unrelenting criticism of the first lady... Is it true that the media have a fixation on the first lady’s fashion sense?"

"For more than a decade, ultrarich people from the former Soviet Union, China and the Middle East have turned to London mansions, New York high-rises, and chic properties in Vancouver, Miami and Paris to store their cash."

"...either our youth walk out on Judaism or maintain a lukewarm relationship with Jewish observance; or, they become so obsessed by its finest points that they are incapable of seeing the forest from the trees."